Consulting Experience

Farm consulting:

• Provide advice to large, medium and small farms in the three Prairie Provinces.
• Specialize in farm finance, farm succession, and farm expansion.
• Qualified for federal subsidies for farm plan development, succession plans and value added business development.

New business startup:

• Participated in numerous venture capital investments.
• Participated on the Board of several profit and non-profit businesses.
• Completed due diligence analysis on over 50 potential investments.
• Experienced in the process of changing management and market focus of non-performing businesses.

Food tracing:

• John Deere's Food Origins - assisted in the development of the Canadian market.
• Fresh Produce - assisted in the demonstration of traceability and recall of vegetables from California.

Identity preservation:

• Assisted in the assessment and market development for container utilization on farm and in terminals.
• Developed processes and software for utilizing identity preservation at the farm level, with the ability to move up the value chain.

Business feasibility:

• Participated in the management of meat processing plants, and completed the assessment on several others including multi-species.
• Invested in several grain processing facilities, and evaluated numerous others ranging from specialized food products through to the use of fibers.
• Invested in several food processing facilities including pulse, fruit and nutraceuticals.

Strategic human resources:

• Developed and implemented Balanced Scorecards, performance management systems
• Management recruitment and employment agreements
• Provided mediation services to resolve business owner/partner conflicts
• Conducted workplace racial, ethnic, gender and personal harassment investigations
• Assisted corporations in recruiting suitable Board members and helped them with  governance and leadership development
• Developed partnership and unanimous shareholder’s agreements

Operations

• Conducted facility suitability assessment utilizing the services of millwrights and other operations experts
• Handled logistics involving the shipment of 750 container loads of agricultural commodities from Saskatchewan to the east coast  

Finance projects:

• Assisting farmers with financing major projects, refinancing and evaluating alternatives such as leasing, partnerships, and non-farm investors.
• Source and place venture capital and lease capital.
• Established an alliance between Farm Credit Services in the United States and FCC in Canada.
• Assisted in the due diligence of several major projects such as the hopper cars, the purchase of provincial loan portfolios, and numerous others.
• Projects to establish scorecard lending systems, portfolio risk management models, customer relationship management database systems.
• Produced a training course for Export Development Corporation to assist foreign bankers in financing dairy and beef.
• Managed a loan and mentorship program across Western Canada
• Developed a comprehensive business plan assessment model
• Developed and implemented a collections staff training program for lenders and other credit providers.
• Provided Horizon software training to agricultural lenders

Risk management:

• Assessed the feasibility of utilizing derivatives to reduce a farms risk by adopting SWAP’s developed by the National Australia Bank.
• Develop on farm management strategies to deal with capital and commodity risk.
• Handled the accounts receivables risk associated with the domestic and international sale of $8 million worth of agricultural commodities.

Strategic planning:

• Developed the environmental scan for senior management for several large organizations.
• Assisted in the due diligence of the feasibility of agroforestry for the province of Saskatchewan.
• Completed the due diligence on the potential for biogas (anaerobic digesters) in Canada for John Deere.

Business Operation Services:

• Development of management processes, job descriptions and operational procedures
• Coaching service for CEOs and senior management.

Surveys:

• Managed key components of the Farm Credit survey of Canadian farms.
• Assessment of the availability of capital for Canadian agricultural co-operatives.

Economic impact assessments:

• Assessed the financial impact of agroforestry investment at the farm level.
• Assessed the economic benefit of developing an agroforestry industry for Saskatchewan.
• Assessed the potential for renewable fuel development in Saskatchewan.

Ag & Eco-Tourism

• Feasibility and business plan development for farmers and businesses.

Committees and Boards:

• Past membership on the Federal Provincial Investment Attraction committee
• Past membership on the Federal Provincial Access to Capital committee
• Past president of the Saskatchewan Institute of Agrologists (SIA) and the Saskatchewan Chapter of the Canadian Agri-Marketing association (CAMA).
• Past Board member of the Saskatchewan Agriculture Diversification Fund which is the major research granting agency for agriculture projects.
• Past Board member of the Saskatchewan Forest Center.
• Past Executive Director of the Canadian Biogas Association.
• Past membership on the SAFFR specialized livestock committee